


Autumn Leaves and Apple Trees

by ascatman



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Come Eating, Doctor Hux, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Modern Era, No spoilers before then sorry, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prescription Drug Use, dubcon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-03 00:25:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8689432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascatman/pseuds/ascatman
Summary: Accomplished English Doctor Hux has been invited to a small town in America to join a hospital in need of staff. The house he has been given used to belong to a mysterious shut-in who disappeared without a trace. What's a sleep deprived man to do when strange things seem to continue happening all around him?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Perfunctorily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perfunctorily/gifts).



> A gift for a friend  
> Posted while mildly intoxicated, so totally subject to revisal later on  
> Kudos and comments invigorate me!!

“He’s out there again.” Hux cradled his cellphone between his shoulder and ear while he filled his tea kettle at the sink that sat in front of the window. Phasma, an old friend from back home (probably the only person who could stand him for prolonged periods of time), was currently sighing on the other end of the line. He could perfectly envision the slow shake of her head accompanying the sound.

“You need to threaten to call the police, you can’t just let some strange man sneak past your fence and sit on your property every night.” She sounded almost disappointed that Hux hadn’t taken the initiative to do something about this issue earlier. “One of these nights he’s going to try something.”

Hux scoffed, tearing his gaze away from the window, from the brooding figure that sat leaned up against the apple tree that grew in his backyard. The kettle was set on the stove, burner turned up to max because he wanted his tea as fast as possible without resorting to microwaving the water. “At least if I’m dead I won’t have to hear you say ‘I told you so’,” he replied, smirk evident in his tone. With his hands free, he was able to take hold of the phone again as he approached the window of his back door. “I’m going to go speak to him, I’ll call you later.”

“Just be careful, I can’t afford to travel to the other side of the world for a funeral right now.”

“I’ll do my best to prevent my own murder. Goodnight.”

“Afternoon,” Phasma corrected, then hung up without waiting for a response. She liked to keep things concise when possible, Hux admired that about her, because he certainly didn’t have time to waste talking about nothing all night.

His water still had several minutes left before it would be boiling, more than enough time to tell this guy to fuck off. Hux did not have the patience to deal with some squatter making his home in his backyard every night, he might have been staying here relatively cheap thanks to his job transfer, but that didn’t mean he would just allow anyone to come take advantage of him. He worked _hard_ to get where he was and he wasn’t about to start being charitable to complete strangers who weren’t paying him for medical advice.

Just in case, he grabbed a small knife from the chopping block, one he could easily slip into the pocket of his jacket as he pulled it on. Summer was coming to an end and the chilly evenings were already beginning to sneak up on him. It was a good enough excuse to have on a jacket in which to conceal a knife on the off chance that the man taking up nightly residence beneath his tree decided he wasn’t a reasonable person.

With one hand tucked into his pocket, fingers brushing the knife handle, Hux opened the door and stepped outside. The man glanced up as he approached, though his exact features were barely distinguishable through both the darkness and the messy hair that hung in his face. Hux stopped with enough feet still between them that he would have time to act if the stranger made any sudden moves, but he couldn’t seem to knock the sense of dread that swelled in his chest. Like he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

“You need to leave. My backyard is fenced off for a reason.” He managed to stand his ground just fine, looking down his nose at the man as though he wasn’t good enough to warrant a full head tilt.

The figure watched him carefully, Hux could see his brows shifting as he was scrutinized, the man’s lips turning up in a sneer like it was _Hux_ who was daring to encroach on _his_ territory. “ _Your_ backyard?” His voice was low, deep in a way that left Hux’s pulse kicking up and his fingers closing around the handle of his hidden knife.

“Yes,” Hux replied, gritting his teeth against the urge to shout, “ _my_ backyard.”

“You don’t own this house.”

“No, the city does. And they’ve graciously put me up here for next to nothing because they were in such desperate need of medical staff that they wanted me transferred immediately. As far as relevant opinions go, this house is mine and you’re trespassing. I’m sure that the police would agree. Need I contact them, or will you be leaving on your own?”

Hux stared the man down as he finished, free hand tucking into his other pocket in order to hide the way his fingers were curling to dig at his palm. He wasn’t in the mood for this, it had hardly been two weeks since he’d gotten moved in and he’d noticed this man sitting outside nearly every single one of those nights. This confrontation was long overdue, now if only it could go smoothly and not end in Hux becoming a headline in the news the next day.

The man was silent for a long moment, though his entire body seemed to move with each large breath he took in. He was either trying to remain calm or readying himself to lose his cool entirely. Hux didn’t have to wait long to find out, as he was quite suddenly being towered over by the large and imposing man. He wasn’t sure how he had managed to move so quick as to get right into Hux’s personal space before he could react, but he quickly found himself stepping back, fingers closing tightly around the knife, ready to yank it free from his pocket and drive it into a vital organ.

“Kylo Ren,” said the man, and Hux blinked in confusion.

“What are you—“

The shriek of the tea kettle cut him off, echoing out through the open door. He couldn’t help glancing back at it out of reflex. Movement caught in the corner of his vision and he whipped his head back around, pulling the knife out and holding it up in self-defense.

But the man was gone, leaving no trace behind. That should have been his first clue, really, but he was exhausted and too eager to put the entire altercation behind him to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t even heard the gate closing.

\---

For the next two days, there was no sign of the mysterious man. Hux’s tree was left unoccupied and he was pleased to inform Phasma that he had taken care of the issue without even having to fight anyone. He really didn’t need the extra stress when his short vacation was coming to an end soon, the allotted two weeks to settle in and get familiar with the area finally passing. Though the most familiar he had actually gotten with the city had been a few quick trips to the store to stock up the kitchen.

It was strange to try to get used to living in a new house, especially one that was still occupied by furniture left over from the previous tenant. The sheets had all been washed twice over, but Hux still couldn’t shake the slight hint of nausea that came with thinking about who might have been using the mattress before him. ‘Mysterious disappearance’, they had said, the person who lived here before had been a shut-in, no family or friends on record for the house to go to. And so the city had taken it, planning on holding onto it until they could decide what to do about the situation. Hux had just been in the right place at the right time, an accomplished doctor looking for a change in scenery, who had somehow caught the eye of a small city in need of someone with his skills. Rent was a steal when you were essentially doing the city a favor just by keeping the house maintained.

Tomorrow he would be back to work though, likely not buried up to the elbow in someone’s chest before having a few days to get acquainted with the staff and facility, but his profession was nothing if not full of surprises. If he was to get enough sleep to be any sort of functional for surgery, he would need to take at least a half dose of his high strength sleep aids. So he made his way to the bathroom, having already changed into his preferred undershirt and boxer briefs for sleeping in, and brushed his teeth while avoiding his own tired looking gaze in the mirror. It was a wonder how someone could look so utterly exhausted, but still find it impossible to get to sleep without medicinal help.

Hux scrubbed at his molars while his free hand pulled the mirror open to reveal the small medicine cabinet where he had stashed his pills. They had done a brief sweep of the house before he moved in, clearing out anything they deemed unsafe, perishable, or personal, which left the cupboards and drawers mostly barren, nothing but furniture and a few necessities and kitchenware behind. Hux would have politely declined all of the linens and towels, but he told himself he could toss them all out and buy new ones with his first paycheck, he really couldn’t be too picky when he’d only just moved in and hardly had the motivation to pick up groceries. A few washes and plenty of detergent was more than enough to remove any traces of whoever had used the towels before him.

The medicine cabinet was mostly empty, save for his pills (both sleeping and high strength migraine relief), razors, and a small first aid kit. There would be plenty of time to start restocking the things he’d gotten used to having back home, he told himself. Starting over fresh would be good, no need to rush things. He reached for the pill bottle, just as the sink suddenly turned on full blast, steam rising up from the heat of the water.

Hux yelped in surprise and dropped the bottle, which spilled open to scatter the small pills directly into the spray. _Shit_ , they would all wash down the drain at this rate! He abandoned the handle of his toothbrush, letting it stick between his teeth as he frantically pulled on the plug release to stop up the sink and twisted the handle to cut off the flow. The water refused to turn off, no matter which way he turned, spraying out and filling the sink up now that he’d plugged it. A quick finger dip in the water told him that his pills were a lost cause unless he wanted to suffer some serious burns. Who designed a sink that could even heat up that much? He groaned in outright annoyance as he slammed the release and watched his pills draining down with the water.

The empty pill bottle came to a stop beneath the spray, rolling until the label was taking the brunt of it. Hux squinted down at the printed prescription, nearly illegible through the water, just barely making out that the name was much shorter than it was supposed to be. It was likely an illusion, brought on by the spray of water, but the last name almost looked like…

“Ren?” he mumbled around his toothbrush, finally pulling it free from his mouth as he tried to lean in closer to see if he was really reading things right.

The water shut off immediately, the last of it draining down the sink, leaving the empty bottle behind with little more than a gurgle echoing from the pipes to fill the sudden silence of the room. Hux snatched the bottle up and pulled it in close to his face. ‘Armitage Hux’, the label read, just as it was supposed to. Of course it did though, even thinking that it would have said anything else was just absurd, text didn’t change like that. He must have been more exhausted than he gave himself credit for.

It wasn’t until he was lying awake in bed, shifting from one side to the other in his insomnia, that he realized he’d heard that name before. _Kylo Ren_ , that was what the stranger had said to him before vanishing. It was just a trick of his subconscious, stress made him hallucinate that he was seeing what must have been the name of the man he had been unable to completely stop thinking about since that night. It was a logical answer, enough that Hux managed to finally get himself to sleep after another hour or so of constantly repositioning himself.

\---

The day was long and grueling, filled with constant running and trying to memorize the layout of things on hardly any sleep. Thankfully he hadn’t been expected to cut anyone open on his first day, which was one weight off of his chest, but he would have to make a detour to the pharmacy before he went home to make sure he could refill his prescription. He could work on no sleep, but downing entire pots of coffee between patients didn’t exactly come off as professional.

Hux was due for another long day tomorrow, so he went about his nightly routine early enough to let his sleeping pills take full effect. There was thankfully no incident in the bathroom this time, pills staying rightfully in their bottle, though he made sure to take his dose out before even attempting to reach over the sink and tuck it away in the cabinet. When he collapsed into bed, it was with a cup of tea and his cellphone, figuring he might as well catch up on emails while he let the meds do their work.

The room was unignorably cold though, and he quickly found himself setting his phone aside so that he could pull the covers up to his chin and roll over in an attempt at keeping warm. He had already turned on the heater, the hum was audible through the vents and he could hardly find enough care in him to get up and adjust it when he was sure it was already set to a respectable 71. A problem for future Hux, he decided, and closed his eyes with a sigh, hoping to pass out before the cold got through his layers.

That night, his dreams were vivid, more realistic than any dream he could recall having before. He dreamt of a large black figure, always at the edge of his peripherals as it loomed over his bed, impossible to catch no matter how fast he turned to look. It was only a dream though, he’d heard of adverse effects on dreams caused by sleep aids, there was no reason to dwell on them and ruin his chance at a decent night’s sleep thinking so hard that he might wake up.

But then there were hands on him, caressing his thighs, a far too cold presence pressed flush against his back while his shirt was lifted so a wandering hand could explore his stomach, leaving him shivering in the wake of its icy touch. This was certainly new, he hadn’t had an erotic dream in years, let alone one that was so lucid. Hux gave a sigh as fingers dragged through the trail of hair that led from his navel down beneath his underwear, feeling far too large to possibly belong to a female. He supposed it made sense to dream of some big strong man caressing his sensitive spots when that was where most of his (admittedly somewhat limited) experience was. College flings and drunken one night stands hardly counted when he couldn’t entirely remember everything that had taken place.

The hand hesitated at the waistband of his shorts, leaving Hux to huff and shift his hips against the weight of the arm that was draped over him. “Get on with it,” he hissed, surprising even himself with the amount of control he was maintaining in this dream. “I’m not going to allow myself to get an awful night’s sleep for a dream projection that’s too shy to go through with things.”

That seemed to stir something in the presence behind him. Hux could feel a heaving chest against his back, the hand groping at the meat of his thigh instead, nails pressing in until he had to bite back a groan of pain. Sure, Hux had enjoyed painful pleasure in the past, a well-placed bite or scratch while being fucked open could do wonders for sending a person over the edge, but this felt different. Almost wrong with the sudden force behind the breaths that were jarring his whole body.

The nails dug deeper, raked in a diagonal line up toward his hip, and Hux couldn’t help the rough hiss of pain that escaped through gritted teeth then.

“Stop!” he shouted, hands reaching down to claw at the large one. To his relief, the presence pulled itself away, leaving Hux to run his fingers along the wound, not horribly deep, but ragged and beading up with blood.

He wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep a second time, but when he awoke it was to a stinging pain in his leg and something sticky coating his fingers. It was still dark out so he had to switch on the table lamp to get a good look at his hand. With the sort of dream he’d had he’d expected to see a mess of his own release, maybe it had been his own hand groping at himself while he slept. The red that stained his digits was not at all what he was prepared for, smeared across the pads of his fingers and between them, like he’d been rubbing at a bloody wound.

A sense of dread came over him as he yanked back the covers and confirmed his suspicions: four long claw marks, smeared over with dried blood. It was on his sheets, on his shorts and shirt from his own restless tossing while he slept. Hux shook his head, running his clean hand through his hair while he tried to pretend that his own nails weren’t clipped too short to do this to himself. It looked as though he would be running his second shift on no sleep too. And definitely taking a higher dose of sleeping pills tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

“A painting?” Phasma was quirking a brow, Hux could practically hear it through the phone. “I thought they took everything from the house before you moved in.”

“Evidently they didn’t check behind the dresser. It was a thin canvas, I’d have missed it too if I hadn’t decided that I preferred my clothes to be stored on the other side of the room.” Hux had the canvas in question sitting out on his bed, thick layers of paint covered the entire thing, enough that he could feel the textures when he brushed his fingers across the image.

“What is it of?” Phasma asked.

“It’s a tree.”

“A tree.”

“I mean, it isn’t just a tree, it’s the one in the yard. The apple tree.” He ran his fingers along the textured bark and up to the warm tones of yellow and orange that made up the leaves, reddening apples dispersed throughout. It was an inviting scene, reminiscent of a crisp autumn day. Whoever had painted this clearly had a special place in their heart for both the tree and the season.

“Is there a signature?” Her voice had Hux blinking, pulling him back from getting lost in thought over the intricacies in each little detail of the painting. His gaze shifted to the corners in search of some indication of the name of the artist.

“No, nothing.” It couldn’t be that hard to find out the name of the man who had lived there and held such a love of art in his solitude, but he wasn’t about to go asking the city council for information that they would likely deem confidential.

“Strange. What are you going to do with it?”

“It’s… Well it’s rather lovely actually. I couldn’t just throw it out.” He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair as he came to terms with a decision. “I’m going to go see if the framing shop is still open.”

 

\---

 

Tomorrow was a day off and Hux planned on taking the opportunity to attempt to catch up on the sleep he had missed out on all week. With two pills rinsed down and a hot cup of tea, he tucked himself under the covers and rolled onto his side to wait out the effects. He had made sure to turn the heater up a little higher this time though, refusing to miss out on sleep due to freezing his ass off.

The painting hung on the wall to his right, a few feet from the bed, but he could still make out the shape of the tree through the moonlight filtering in from the window. It had cost more than he’d wanted to spend just to put a decent frame around it, but there was no denying that the twisting golden pattern complimented the colors of the autumn scene perfectly. He nuzzled his head further into the pillow and closed his eyes while imagining what the man who’d painted it might think of his art being displayed so openly when he’d been trying to hide it behind a dresser until now.

He must have drifted off not long after, because he soon felt the bed shifting behind him, a second body pressing up to his back. Just like before, he found the figure chilling him to the core, raising bumps on his arms and causing him to draw in a sharp breath as a hand pushed up under his shirt once again. Unlike before, it didn’t move yet, the arm resting over him while fingers splayed out on his stomach. Cool breath ghosted over the fine hairs at the back of his neck and he wasn’t sure that he could blame the ensuing shiver entirely on the cold.

“You hung it up.” The voice was low, hardly a whisper, though it was perfectly audible in the otherwise dead quiet of the room.

“The painting?” he found himself asking, then immediately berating himself for speaking with his dream projections when he was supposed to be getting sleep.

“ _My_ painting,” the voice corrected, practically a growl this time. There was something familiar to it that Hux couldn’t quite place.

He blinked, staring at the painting for a long moment before shifting in place, making a move to turn to actually look at the man he couldn’t seem to stop dreaming about. The arm around him tightened, pulling him closer to the man’s chest in an almost crushing embrace.

“Don’t look at me, I don’t want you to see.” There was an almost pleading edge to the man’s tone, and Hux could feel the way his breathing had picked up behind him. He recalled the sting of the marks on his thigh and thought better of outright disobeying.

“Fine. If I’m not allowed to look at you then why are you here?”

“I…” The voice faltered and then there were lips barely brushing Hux’s neck as it continued, “You hung it up. No one else would have. I watched them all being thrown away, the rest of them. That was the only one I could hide while they weren’t looking.”

There was a profound sort of sadness in the way the man recalled some memory that Hux had no business projecting into his dreams. He swallowed, not entirely sure how he was supposed to handle this situation, he’d never exactly had to comfort his own subconscious before. Was this some kind of existential crisis that was presenting itself through cryptic lucid dreams and sad men who couldn’t decide whether to hurt him or fuck him?

“I’m not exactly good at comforting people who aren’t paying me to pretend like I have some great emotional care for their well-being,” he admitted, though his hand shifted to rest over the icy cold one that was pressed to his stomach, large enough to dwarf the size of his own. “I’m sorry about your paintings, I’m sure that they were all just as beautiful as this one.” The figure behind him sighed against his neck, he supposed it must have been in appreciation.

“But,” he continued, before that voice could cut him off again, “I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since I moved in here, and you’re partially to blame for that. So if you aren’t here to fuck me into a coma or otherwise alleviate my sleep issues, I’m going to have to kindly ask you to leave. Sleeping next to you is like sleeping with a block of ice strapped to my back.”

The man tensed behind him, sucking in a sharp breath. “You really want me to do that?” He nipped at the back of Hux’s neck, drawing a groan from somewhere low in his throat. “You just met me.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve fucked someone I knew nothing about.” Hux squirmed in an entirely undignified way when the hand beneath his finally pressed down to grope him through the front of his shorts. It felt so real, he could have easily mistaken this for reality.

“You’re so warm,” the man mumbled, placing kisses to the skin at his lips while he gave an experimental grind forward.

“Or maybe you’re just too cold,” Hux replied, arching his back to place his ass at the perfect angle to be ground into. The man was already hard against him, feeling almost imposingly large even through the layers of clothing that still separated them.

Hux felt the mouth at the back of his neck turning up in a smirk while the hand at the front of his shorts shifted up and slipped down inside to take him in a fist and stroke. It was still so cold, but like this he could find a sort of appreciation for the temperature play, the hot flesh of his prick contrasting nicely with the frigid skin of the man’s palm. If this was how his nights with medication induced lucid dreaming were going to go then he supposed he could learn to live with it, even if the projection that his subconscious chose came off as an obnoxious nuisance.

“Let me feel you,” the man said, urgency apparent beneath his lust deepened tone. He shifted behind Hux, until a second hand was tugging at the back of his shorts, pulling the elastic down below Hux’s ass without bothering to free his front at all. “I won’t put it in now, don’t worry.” The promise was followed by the unmistakable sound of spitting and then a tantalizingly large cock nudging up between his cheeks, slick with what Hux could only assume was saliva.

“You’re huge. Of course you’re huge.” Hux wondered if it said something about himself that he’d managed to create a dream projection with a cock that could easily tear him up if the man decided to push his way in without a decent amount of preparation. He chose not to think about it, instead letting his eyes slip shut and his hips roll forward into the hand and then backward onto the dick. “I wouldn’t mind really. I don’t work tomorrow, I can lose a little sleep.”

“No, not tonight.” The man continued to work his hips, the head of his cock grinding teasingly over Hux’s hole, another more intense temperature play at the most sensitive area of his body. It drew a whine from him and a moan from behind him, asshole twitching and grasping at each pass of the tip of that large prick like it wanted nothing more than to swallow it whole.

The hand at his cock sped up and Hux choked back an embarrassing keening sound as he felt the man’s cockhead catching on his rim, so close to forcing its way inside. He found himself grasping at the large bicep that was currently helping to work him so well, and at the next teasing pass against his entrance, he gave into the urge to let himself go.

Hux came with an unrestrained whimper of pleasure, coating both the hand and the front of his shorts in a sticky spattering of his release. There was no doubt that he would be waking up with a mess in the morning. The muscles of his hole all fluttered and clamped down at once, hips bucking back against the prick that continued to slide between his cheeks. It didn’t take long after that for the man to finish, spilling his own load directly along Hux’s crack with a deep groan, he could feel the icy release hitting his lower back. At least that one wasn’t a mess that would need dealt with, it should just vanish with the dream. Never mind the claw marks that still stung on his thigh with no regard for that rule.

“It’s everywhere,” the man said beneath his breath, pushing up against Hux once more to speckle the back of his neck in more kisses. Since when did Hux ask his dream projection to get so affectionate? “I hadn’t planned on doing this, I would have grabbed a towel.”

“Shut up, you’re killing the afterglow.” Hux huffed out a short sigh and tugged the hand from his shorts, grasping it by the wrist and bringing it up to slide one of those large fingers between his lips. There was a stuttered breath at his ear and he could imagine just how easy it would be to turn and see the face of his mysterious stranger while he watched him lick the come from his fingers. He kept his eyes down though, figuring that looking when he’d been told not to would be the fastest way to end the night and send his hallucination packing.

Real or not, Hux knew how to put on a show. He sucked his own release from each finger in slow succession, then trailed his tongue along the man’s palm to catch a stray drop that had made its way down to his wrist. His tongue caught in a divot there and he took a moment to pull back, blinking down at an absolutely massive scar that spanned from one side of the wrist to the other. Hux knew wounds, he knew the sort that were fixable, knew what a person could shake off with enough care. But something that deep, right over those veins, that was the sort of wound that a person didn’t come back from so easily.

The man behind him was starting to shake as though his own cold was finally catching up with him, breaths growing ragged as he curled his hand into a fist in Hux’s grip. “It isn’t polite to stare,” he whispered, and Hux couldn’t help turning his head this time.

He was met with wild dark eyes and a mess of long hair, face so close that Hux almost didn’t recognize who he was seeing for a long moment. And then he was dropping the man’s hand and rolling over to sit up and shuffle as far away as he could manage without falling off the bed. “ _You_ ,” he gasped, gaze flitting back and forth between features as though he couldn’t decide which of them was the most jarring. “Kylo Ren.”

At the mention of his name, the man’s eyes grew wide, like he couldn’t believe Hux had remembered. And in a sudden movement, he was off the bed and out the door, slamming it behind him before Hux could even have a chance at getting up to chase.

When Hux finally managed to untangle fully from the covers and reach the door to throw it open, there was no sign of anyone there. He couldn’t hear any footsteps or doors, there was nothing save for the sound of his own heaving breaths. He must have been going completely mad. The drying mess on both sides of him was begging for a shower, but the steady droop of his eyelids begged for sleep.

Sleep won over in the end, and when morning came he changed the sheets and showered without thinking about the crusted filth on his back.


End file.
